Amid hot tensions between the U.S. and Russia, there are indications that Washington is seeking to wage World War 3 against Moscow, according to a former U.S. Army officer.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Ukraine suggests that Washington is seeking a war with Russia by stirring up tensions in Ukraine, says Joachim Hagopian, a former U.S. Army officer and an analyst. Biden arrived in Ukraine on Sunday to reassure the Ukrainian government that the U.S. still remembers its eastern European ally even though it cooperates with Moscow on fighting ISIS – a.k.a. Daesh – terrorists in Syria.
Biden arrived in Ukraine to “kind of reassure the Kiev puppet ally government that the United States is standing behind them, ready for World War 3 against Russia,” Hagopian told Press TV on Sunday.
“I think that we are seeing polarization and a movement towards more confrontation, unfortunately, and I think that this Biden visit to Ukraine is the same [as] ‘you know, we are going to be there for you when World War III starts, we are going to be fighting right alongside you’,” the analyst said.
Russia has a winning card over U.S. allies
Hagopian also said that Russia’s enormous natural energy resources are Russian President Vladimir Putin’s winning card against America’s constant push for military confrontation. Countries like Turkey and Ukraine, both of which have been on the brink of unleashing a military conflict with Russia, are having difficulties over the future of their energy ties with Moscow, their main supplier, according the analyst.
Moscow recently introduced economic sanctions against Turkey, which will cost the country approximately $9 billion. Moreover, Ankara is on the verge of losing Russia as its main energy resources supplier after the Turkish military last week shot down a Russian jet in its airspace.
Describing the situation with Russia using energy resources as a very effective deterrent against Washington’s influence, Hagopian said that Turkey and Ukraine “shot themselves in the foot” and have become “puppets” of the U.S. in exchange for energy supplies.
Here’s how the U.S. is going to win sea battles against Russia
The former U.S. Army officer’s comments about the U.S. seeking to wage World War 3 against Russia come amid reports that the U.S. Navy’s largest-ever guided missile destroyer, the USS Zumwalt, began its first sea trials. According to RT, the state-of-the-art destroyer cost over $4 billion to design and build and took a couple of decades to construct, while its design has flaws and even potential risks. On Monday, the ship left the Bath Iron Works on the Kennebec River in Maine to go through several naval tests.
“Over the next several days, the Navy will demonstrate many of the ship’s key systems and technologies,” said Capt. Thurraya Kent, a Navy spokeswoman, according to the Associated Press. “The Navy and the shipbuilder are executing the test program of this first of class ship with extreme rigor and this initial at-sea period will allow for earlier issue identification and risk mitigation.”
The USS Zumwalt is 600 feet long and features laser weapons and antennas. With total costs likely to reach $22 billion, the ship is set to replace the Navy’s current fleet of Arleigh-Burke destroyers. It can be particularly useful in multi-mission warfare, being an anti-air, anti-submarine and anti-surface guided-missile destroyer.
Controversy over USS Zumwalt and its dangerous flaws
However, the design of the USS Zumwalt has already triggered a round of controversy. According to Defense News, the destroyer’s tumblehome hull, a wave-slicing angled front in which the warship’s sides slope outward rather than inward, is intended to pierce through waves and ride them.
Such hulls have not been featured in ship designs since the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 when French shipyard designers commonly used the tumblehome hull in an attempt to create better sea-worthiness. Instead, French shipyard designers learned that these hulls caused stability problems, while the Russians found it perfect for navigating through canals.
Defense News reported that at least eight current and former U.S. Army officers, Navy engineers, architects and naval analysts have voiced concerns about the USS Zumwalt’s stability problems, saying it could easily roll over. And then there is its alleged stealth ability.
“Stealth was BS to start with and is still BS,” a civilian naval architect told Defense News.
Are destroyers worth taxpayer’s money?
“The trouble is that as a ship pitches and heaves at sea, if you have a tumblehome instead of flare, you have no righting energy to make the ship come back up,” Ken Brower told Defense News. “On the DDG 1000 [Zumwalt], with the wave coming at you from behind, when a ship pitches down, it can lose transverse stability as the stern comes out of the water – and basically roll over.”
However, the U.S. Navy still insists that the design of the destroyer is completely safe, claiming that they have already tested the warship for all potential risks. Meanwhile the destroyer’s safety and costs are not the only concerns of the public. Many analysts question whether it is a reasonable use of U.S. taxpayer’s money in the 21st Century to build warships and whether warships are the right fit for future warfare.
“No ship is more interesting in the way that it links the past with the questions that surround the future of naval war,” Peter Singer, a senior officer at the New America Foundation, told Associated Press. “It is a both a throwback and a breakthrough. It is the size of a World War I battleship, originally designed for gunfire shore bombardment, a role many are not sure we even need any more, but utterly revolutionary in other ways.”
